This is probably the fourth time that I've watched the show (at least). I think in many cases it's very clear where the analogies are, I'm happy to find out I have more to learn and discover, though. And that I've grown more since the last time I saw the show.

There are also some nice moments later on where you get to see how much Buffy's learned and developed - there's a scene in S7 where Buffy walks through the halls of a high school, sees a student becoming transparent and slaps them to prove someone noticed them. In a few seconds, she recognises and resolves an issue that took an entire episode back in S1...

Soupspoon wrote:A number of episodes (if not whole character arcs) portray the straight dangers of substance abuse

...

(Avoided expanding into spoilers too much stuff not based on the early seasons. One example... make that actually two... are past that cut-off and a bit seriously spoily, but if you're not near them I decided you're not actually going to remember enough about what I suggested when you do eventually approach the respective areas of the story-arcs.)

Season 6 spoilers:

Spoiler:

Presumably this is why you omitted explicitly discussing the most obvious and lengthy substance abuse arc, with the major season 6 magic = drugs subplot, and the subsequent season 7 rehab stuff. I actually really enjoyed season 6, but I know it's generally not very popular, and seen as a bit too heavy handed with the allegory.

Indeed. S6 character probably exceeded even Angelus. Even the S3 Wishverse version (who actually might get on really well with S3 'regular' version, it seemed) was more 'merely' efficient at being their current self, not at fault for that. The S6 descent was a matter of self-driving into dependency (with one safety net, first abused then lost). I think it was an interesting arc, given the differences from the other seasons' Bigs Bad.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is so, so pretty. And so is: David Boreanaz, um, the lady that plays Willow and the lady that plays Tara? All beautiful. I even like the green skin singer lounge club demon.

Spoiler:

When Willow ate all the magics and went evil and scratched up Buffy? Creepy. And it was all over those geeky losers shooting her girlfriend dead. Why? And... the show actually had a mind control episode. I thought their teenage lingo was cute. And Willow was so, so nice and had red hair like me. Buffy was like a big sister/leader wolfess of the group. And I love... love... the show Angel a vamp w/a conscience yes? D. Boreanaz makes me melt inside.... <3 Ooh ooh and Wolfram and Hart? Scary evil otherworldly lawyers.

Hinata to Naruto wrote:I used to always cry and give up. I made several wrong turns... I just wanted to chase after you, walk beside you.

Azula to Long Feng wrote:Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player.